Making sense of the metadata world

Having come into my LIS program from the perspective of an elementary school librarian, I had expected to have my view of the field open up drastically, and learn about concepts I had never been exposed to before. Metadata was one of those concepts, which even for the first year or so of my studies boiled down inside my head to "it's like cataloging, but, not for books, right?" Needless to say, my Metadata class has opened my eyes a great deal as to the versatility of the metadata concept, and the numerous tools, ideas, and structures that are associated with it. But still, for someone who is focusing in on mastering the understanding of Dublin Core elements and their uses, there is a minefield of confusion and frustration as concepts and aspects of metadata pile upon each other in my mind. Schema, descriptive standards, content standards, digitization standards, left-side, right-side, refinements, qualifiers, MODS, MADS, LCSH, EAD, VRA, MeSH...the list goes on and on, with my sometimes overwhelmed brain trying to sort it all out and make sense of it all.

My LS 566 classmate, Michele, has posted an excellent recent blog entitled "Big Picture," which tackles some of the concepts listed above, and helps to break down some of the distinctions between the various types of standards and how they are used, as well as listing some examples of each. I found the post to be extremely helpful in developing and reinforcing my own understanding of many of these various ideas, and would highly recommend giving it a look. As for metadata's adherence to the EHAA (Everything Has An Acronym) standard that similarly bogs down the field of education I currently work in, well, that probably can't be helped.